


The Coldest Place on Earth

by otter



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's just jealous because he's going to a Nobel Prize before she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coldest Place on Earth

She's expecting Daniel, but she's still only slightly surprised when the man waiting for her is too short, too narrow in the shoulders and not narrow enough around the waist. He holds up a hand as she approaches, but she isn't sure whether it's a wave hello or if he's just guarding his face from the backwash of snow kicked up by the helicopter as it pushes itself back into the sky.

"Colonel Carter," he shouts, over the fading engine noise. "Welcome to Antarctica!" She can see his smile, wide and a little crooked, framed by the lining of his parka hood.

"Doctor McKay," she says. "I wasn't expecting you." She offers a hand, and he takes it, clasps it between both of his own -- it's a strangely warm, welcoming gesture, even with layers of gloves between them -- before he reaches out and takes the bag from her other hand. That's either unexpectedly gallant or blatantly chauvenistic, but it's been a long flight to nowhere and she's worn enough to just let it pass.

McKay sweeps a hand toward the frost-edged white doors that lead into the dome, and says, "After you."

Inside, the dome isn't exactly warm, but it's not as cold as the world outside, either; Sam pulls down her hood and shifts the scarf underneath so it's not wrapped quite so tightly around her neck. McKay does the same, as he's leading the way down the corridor toward the elevator doors she can see at the end. There are other doorways along the corridor, and she glances at them curiously as they pass, but McKay says, "Weather station, communications, offices and living quarters," and he points at the elevator. "All the interesting stuff is downstairs."

"Where's Daniel?" Sam asks, because she clearly remembers Daniel saying he'd meet her at the helo-pad, and she's a little bitter that he's subjected her to McKay instead.

"Oh," McKay says. "Um. When I left he was having a very loud argument with Solynetski. Something about budgies? Not important." He folds back the gate covering the elevator entrance and gestures her ahead.

Sam stares at him for a long moment, just to let him know that she knows that he plotted to have Daniel distracted. She wants to smile -- she has no idea how he manages to be so incredibly irritating and oddly endearing at the same time -- but she holds it back until she's stepping into the elevator and he can't see her face.

When they're inside the car and descending with nothing else to look at but the rough-hewn wall of ice that they're sliding down through, Sam says, "So. How've you been?"

He looks at her like he thinks maybe it's a trick question, and then he looks back at the ice, as if he's torn between ignoring her completely and being caught staring.

"Better, lately," he says. He doesn't mention Russia, but it's there in the jut of his chin and the tightness of his jaw. "I ah," he says, to the elevator. "That is, thank you. For recommending me for this project."

Sam watches the ice like it might give something away, but it just keeps drifting by, white and more white, sparkling slightly with the lights of the lift. "I don't know what you're talking about, McKay," she says.

He gives her that look -- that "come now, we're both geniuses here" look that she's never seen anybody else even attempt -- and says, "Sure you don't. I just wanted to let you know that it's appreciated. Flattering, even."

"Well," she says, like she's admitting to something. "It was my pleasure. I just hope it's enough."

McKay frowns, puts her bag down on the floor between them and shakes out his fingers a little like he was losing circulation. "Yes," he says, "I'd say it was. I'm in charge of the science department here. I didn't think you were that out of the loop, Colonel." He smirks a little, and she has a hard time remembering that she ever liked him for even a split second.

The elevator slows automatically as it finally, mercifully reaches the bottom of the shaft. Sam leans over and picks up her bag, straightens and takes a step toward the front of the car as the wall of ice begins to give way to an opening, lights and voices and Daniel standing there waiting. "No," she says, "I meant I hope Antarctica is far enough away. Russia sure wasn't." She smiles at him very brightly, and then the elevator is settling to an easy stop. Sam says, "Daniel!" and steps out of the shaft, greets her former teammate enthusiastically, and leaves McKay standing alone in the elevator.

+++

Her quarters, up in the dome, are cramped and cold, but everything here is. Even down in the caverns it was too crowded, but that could've been from always seeing Colonel -- General -- O'Neill's stasis chamber out of the corner of her eye, or it could've been from feeling McKay's eyes on her back all day.

She's only just put her bag down at the end of her cot when somebody knocks on the hard plastic door. Three raps, hard and fast and very agitated, so she knows it's him before she even opens the door and says, "What do you want, McKay?"

He's a little red-faced, and it might be temper or it might just be the cold. He thrusts a finger in front of her face and says, "You're just jealous because I'm going to get a Nobel Prize before you," and the next thing Sam knows they're both stumbling back into her room, and she's got her hands fisted in his pull-over like she can't decide whether she's going to kiss him or hit him. While she's still equivocating, he's a step ahead, and he's already got his tongue in her mouth, his hands under the hem of her sweater. His fingers are cold and his mouth tastes of stale coffee, and it just seems completely unlikely but somehow he's absolutely the best kisser _ever_.

When their mouths finally break apart and she can breathe again, she says, "Uh," and he says, "God," kind of reverently, against the side of her neck in between the warm, wet kisses he's leaving there, and his fingers are edging up her sweater while his palms are skimming over her sides, and she thinks, yeah, alright, why not?

+++

She wakes up teetering at the edge of her own cot and shivering with the cold; the blanket is criminally small, and most of it seems to have ended up wound around McKay, who is sprawled on his back and breathing loudly through his mouth and not looking chilly in the least. Sam watches him sleep for a moment, and wonders just what in the hell she was _thinking_ , and then she leans over, digs an elbow into McKay's side, and snatches the blanket back when he yelps and rolls right off the cot and onto the floor.

"My god," he says, when he's on his feet again, naked and shivering and staring down at her like she's betrayed their beautiful relationship. "You could've just said you were cold, you know."

She smiles at him as angelically as she can manage while she settles into the warm space left by his body, covered over with a warm blanket and not feeling even slightly crowded now. "Oh, it's okay," she says. "I'm not cold anymore."

He says, "Uh huh," in a very skeptical way, looks at himself and the cot and his clothes and the door, and she can practically see his brain working, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do next. "Um," he says, and looks sort of at her but mostly at the floor. "I could uh... warm you up? Maybe?"

She has to think about it, and if that's not a sad statement on her love life, she doesn't know what is. He's an absolutely spectacular kisser, and that's something, but she really can't think of a time when she's had more awkward, uncomfortable sex. She's pretty sure he knows it, too, because he's shifting from one foot to the other and looking really sheepish, and she figures she should maybe give him a chance to make it up to her.

She finally sighs and lifts the blanket, invites him back in, and he's too much, too close, too blindingly inept. But then he kisses her mouth, and her throat, her chest and then lower, lower, and she thinks that maybe he's not hopeless, after all.

the end


End file.
